Kissing Cousins
by Tobiwolf13
Summary: Chloe's kissing technique has evolved through the years and it all starts with a sleepover, advice from her cousin, and a little help from her stuffed teddy bear. Oh, and Clark too...


**Kissing Cousins**

Metropolis, Kansas ------- November 10, 1998

"Dare," Chloe said, leaning back against the orange sofa.

Lois rolled her eyes and looked up at her cousin from her cross-legged position on the floor. "Oh, come on, Chlo."

"Don't 'Come on, Chlo" me! You asked what I wanted to do, Lo, and I'd rather do a dare."

Lois shook her head, her long pony-tail grazing the back of her cow pajamas when she moved. "Chloe, look, I love you like crazy and I know it's your birthday and you really want to have a good time---"

"See, these are all reasons why I should be allowed to do a dare."

"I'm not finished. I know your Dad talked the General into this little cousins' sleepover thing, but I really don't want to play Truth or Dare."

"Why not?"

"First of all, I'm thirteen and this is a little babyish for me and second of all, you suck at this game."

"I do not!"

"You do too. When we played it at Lucy's sleepover last fall you tried to convince everyone that truth was the only way to go. You went all investigative reporter on them."

"It's fun being a reporter. I was born to get to the truth."

Lois rolled her eyes again. "But the dares are half the game. Besides, you totally cheat at this game. The last time you refused to do a dare. You can't wuss out like that."

Chloe pushed herself out of the cushions of the over stuffed sofa. Frustrated, she waved her hands around when she replied, "That's not fair. Lucy dared me to drink from the toilet. That's just not sanitary and I wasn't going to do it."

"So what? Lucy once dared me to eat a caterpillar and I did it. If you wanna win the game, you have to be willing to do anything to win. That's just the way it is."

"Well, I'm older now and highly motivated to win. Give me your worst."

"Don't tempt the master, Chlo. I once had Lucy eating a toothpaste and Tabasco sandwich. I have an excellent imagination." Lois frowned and bit her lower lip. Suddenly she grinned, a malicious smile spreading its way across her face. "I have it. But before I tell you my genius plan, you have one more chance to back down."

Chloe crossed her arms over her chest. "Chloe Sullivan is not a coward."

"I hope so considering we share a gene pool. Anyway," Lois said, yanking Chloe's stuffed panda, Walter Cronkite, out from under the sofa and tossing it to her cousin. "I dare you to kiss Walter."

"That's it?" Chloe scoffed. "I give Cronky a peck on the snout every night before bed. It's not exactly scandalous."

Lois couldn't keep the self-satisfaction out of her voice. "That's the genius part. I'm not talking a peck on the cheek. I mean, you're supposed to kiss the way you'd kiss a boy. I want to see your technique Chloe."

"A boy?" Chloe squeaked. She'd never kissed a boy before. In fact, most of the boys in the sixth grade thought she was weird and wouldn't even talk to her, let alone opt for a session of seven minutes in the closet. Of course, Lois didn't know that. Most of the time when they talked on the phone their conversations either revolved around the annoyance that was Lucy and the General or about innocuous pop culture stuff. Love life was taboo.

Besides, she had just turned twelve. It wasn't like she was supposed to be having a love life anyway.

Lois just rolled her eyes again and idly Chloe wondered if one could cause their eyeballs to pop out because of repeated rolling. If that were the case, Lois Lane, queen of teen-age sarcasm had better watch out. "Yes, Chloe, like you kiss a boy."

"Gee, Lois, can't it just be a peck on the snout like always?"

"No it can't, and if you chicken out again I am so telling Lucy."

"Fine." Chloe huffed, deciding it was better to get this whole thing over with. She picked up Cronky and held his teddy bear face a few inches from her own. "Here goes nothing, Cronky." She placed her mouth over the tip of his snout and opened her mouth wide. Trying to imitate every romance movie she'd ever seen, Chloe tried to stick out her tongue and French the bear. Her mouth opened wider until it felt like half of Cronky's face was down her throat and her tongue licked at his button nose a few times. She gripped the back of his head to steady him. Then she pulled her head back and kissed him again, this time trying that open-mouthed biting technique that she'd seen on Beverly Hills 90210 the one time dad had let her watch it.

Feeling that this display was adequate and also tired of the taste of fluff on her tongue, Chloe broke the kiss and set Cronky back on her lap. "See, I did it."

Lois, instead of congratulating her, was rolling on the floor laughing. "Oh my god, are you serious? What, were you trying to bite his face off?"

"No…I…" Chloe frowned. "Wasn't that good?" She had no idea why she was asking the question. It's not like she planned on macking on her teddy bear again.

Still laughing, Lois struggled to sit up. "Chlo, I just feel sorry for you is all. Whichever boy taught you that that was how you kissed was an idiot or possibly had some disease causing involuntary spasms of the mouth. That was terrible."

Perfect. Chloe felt the blush bloom on her cheeks. "It's just that I've never…well, you see it's funny that you would mention a boy---"

Wiping a tear from her eye, Lois frowned up at her, her expression becoming serious. "Chlo, are you telling me that you've never kissed a boy before?"

"Well I did just turn twelve." Chloe defended, her voice growing louder.

Lois shrugged. "That's not an excuse. My first kiss was with Scott Groveman in the art room closet when I was eleven." She sighed. "Now there was a good kisser."

"Lois, you went to an all girls school."

Her cousin smirked at her. "I know."

"Oh man." Chloe said, giving Cronky a tight squeeze and taking in a shaky breath. "It's just that none of the guys have been interested in me yet. I mean, look at the two of us Lois. It's pretty obvious why Scott would have taken you into the closet and not someone like me."

"What does that mean?"

Chloe sighed. "Lois, you've had boobs since forever and I'm still flat as a squashed cockroach."

"You know," Lois said, standing up and plopping down on the couch next to her. "I won't have you talking about my little cuz like that. The Chloe Sullivan I know is smart and sassy and she's an unbelievably pretty blond."

Chloe snorted. "Yeah right."

Lois punched her lightly on the arm. "Exactly right. Remember what I said about the gene pool? We're related and since I'm obviously devastatingly gorgeous, you have to be pretty too."

"I think you and Mendel never really got too closely acquainted."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind."

"Besides, Uncle Gabe's not a bad looking guy, you know for a dad."

"Eww."

"Oh god, not like that silly. I mean it's not like he's bald or fat or anything terrible. Besides, you know our moms were like beauty pageant pretty."

Lois's mom had actually in point of fact competed in a few pageants when the two O'Hara girls had been growing up in Topeka. The stress of trying to keep the perfect figure had actually been one of the factors that drove her to start smoking in the first place. Chloe's mom had been a lot more practical, getting into writing for her high school paper instead of going the glamour route. The younger girl had always admired that her mom had used her brains to get ahead. When her dad had told her all the stories about her mom in high school, Chloe had vowed that she'd be a reporter too.

In fact, three days after she'd made that declaration to her dad, he'd brought home Cronky.

"Yes Lois, but still if I don't have any opportunities to kiss somebody, I'm never going to get any better."

Lois turned to her. "I can help you with that."

"Double eww. We live in Kansas, not Kentucky."

Lois rolled her eyes yet again and Chloe looked for a bowl or something to catch those eyeballs when they finally fell out of her cousin's head. Thirteen year olds. "Not like that. I mean, I can show you a little of my technique. Come on."

"What do you mean come on?" Chloe said, hopping off the couch and following the already up and walking Lois.

"I mean, we're going to the bathroom so we can practice in front of a mirror."

Chloe shook her head, still hesitant, as she and Lois squeezed themselves into the bathroom adjoining the family room. "How exactly are we going to practice?"

"Like this," Lois said, standing on her tip toes and pressing a gentle kiss to the mirror. When she pulled away, her pink-glossed lips left behind a mark.

"Oh, I can do that." Chloe said. Pressing her own lips to the mirror, she tried to kiss it. When she pulled back, the mirror was fogged over but there was not a trace of gloss. Chloe did wear any. Her dad didn't want her wearing make-up until she was thirteen so she wasn't even as glamorous as Lois. "How was that?"

Lois shook her head but when she spoke her tone was patient, well, at least for her. "You're still not getting it. It's like you're trying to attack the mirror or something. You don't have to bite."

"But in the movies---"

"That's the movies. They're staged, you know. They aren't even really kissing because it's all some trick of angles."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh. You don't have to be so aggressive with it. Watch." Lois ordered as she kissed the mirror again, her lips parted but not spread far apart, her tongue stuck out to touch the mirror a little before the rest of her mouth. "Just be gentle."

Gentle with glass. Yeah, that was easy. It felt like the time she'd been dared to touch her lips to the flagpole in the middle of winter. It wasn't freezing cold, but the surface was still cool, still unyielding. Sighing, Chloe tried again. When she looked up, Lois was still frowning. "It's still not quite right, is it?"

"These things take practice. Here," Lois said holding up her right hand which she'd balled into a fist. She bent down and gave the knuckle of her pointer finger a slow kiss. "Try it on your own hand first, that way you can practice with something that's actually bendy like a face."

Chloe nodded and held her own hand. She felt very stupid doing this. Okay, it was just her and Lois and her cousin wasn't going to make fun of her for this. Besides, it's not like her dad was a person she could ask for kissing advice. This might be her only shot. Chloe bent down and started to kiss her hand, but first Lois coughed behind her.

"What?"

"Try it the way you've done it first with the whole extreme Hollywood biting technique. You're going to want to feel the difference."

"Alright," Chloe said, letting out a nervous breath. She brought a hand to her face and tried kissing it first Chloe style. It felt terrible. Her mouth was open so wide that she couldn't help but slobber all over it and when she closed her mouth, her teeth grazed painfully across her hand. "That kind of hurts."

"It's the biting thing. Now, I want you to try it again but just open your mouth a little and stick out your tongue just a tiny bit. You're like trying to give yourself a tongue bath or something. This is more like a mini mouth massage."

"Alliteration aside, I cannot believe you just said that."

"I'm going for the visuals here, little cousin."

Rolling her eyes and cursing Lois for imparting that bad habit to her, Chloe tried the more subtle Lois kiss on her hand. At first it felt really weird with her tongue touching the back of her hand (and boy was she glad she'd washed up after dinner), but after a few hesitant tries it almost felt nice.

Lois applauded in approval. "That's much better. If you keep practicing you'll be a pro in no time."

Chloe grinned at her. "You never know, Lo, I might even get better than you."

"Oh no, the student never surpasses the master. Besides, you don't even know the half of it yet."

"I don't?"

"No. Lucy snuck home this magazine called Neopolitan---"

"That's an ice cream flavor, three actually."

"Whatever-a-politan then. And it says you need to practice tongue strengthening exercises."

Chloe arched an eyebrow at her cousin. That made like no sense. "Why?"

Lois shrugged. "More kissing I guess, but if you have a lollipop I can show you how it's supposed to work."

Smallville, Kansas ----- August 28, 2000

It must have been a million degrees in the barn and Chloe had no idea why she had even asked to come over, especially not when she could be back at home in front of her air conditioner. Of course, going home meant being alone in her huge new and unfamiliar house until her father could come home. This new job at LuthorCorp was supposed to be good for her family. It was the kind of job she knew her dad had been waiting for---something in management where people would take him seriously. It also came with the kind of salary that could pay for an Ivy League college, and Chloe had been cultivating girlhood dreams of Vassar. Or maybe Columbia. They had a phenomenal writing program. Still, her dad's job at the plant meant long and lonely nights that she spent with a Domino's pizza, her Buffy the Vampire Slayer video tapes, and Cronky.

She really missed Metropolis.

So, when Clark Kent, her ersatz tour guide, mentioned that he lived on a farm, she'd asked to come over and see it. Of course she'd never seen a real farm before. In point of fact, except for a visit to the Metropolis Zoo when she was eight, she'd never seen cows or horses in person. For someone who'd been the ultimate Metropolitan, it was kind of sad that she was stuck in Mayberry now.

Her real motive in inviting herself over, however, was to try and make a friend.

He'd looked so cute when she'd asked. His voice had broken and his eyes had gotten really wide, as if girls didn't ask to come over to his house all the time. Granted, based on the bountiful supply of friends Clark seemed to be sporting----just one, the very sweet and riotously funny Pete Ross, whom Chloe had liked instantly----maybe he really didn't have a lot of girls asking to see his barn.

Maybe girls in Smallville were stuck in 1961 where blue jeans were still scandalous and nice girls waited forever for boys to notice them. Or maybe every girl at Smallville Middle School had severe vision problems. Either way, it was their loss. Chloe, thanks to that fiery O'Hara blood, was always forward and she had 20/20 vision. Clark Kent was gorgeous.

And, when he returned from the kitchen where his mom was finishing fixing up their snack, Chloe'd be completely alone with him.

This was so much better than Buffy.

Chloe was pacing around the loft, waiting for Clark. She'd already been shown around the farmland and had the unique (to her at least) experience of petting a baby goat. It wasn't exactly her lifestyle choice, but she could see how people could get used to life on the farm. It was simple, calming. As she walked, Chloe looked over Clark's stash of possessions. There was no faster way to learn about a person than to check out their private space. They always kept what they really cared about within easy reach, on display.

That's why her dad's home office had an expertly catalogued collection of SNL tapes and several dozen books of jokes (from knock-knock to dirty). In contrast, Chloe's room proudly displayed her Buffy posters and a small scattering of news clippings she'd been collecting since she'd moved to Smallville last month. Each article contained a crime or an event that was just a bit unusual. Chloe was beginning to piece together the theory that Smallville wasn't as innocuous as it first seemed.

Oh and of course room included a bookshelf crammed with books on history, current events, the unexplained, and biographies of her favorite journalists. Yup, anyone who came into her room would have her pegged in about 30 seconds as Lois had once pointed out. Like her cousin was one to talk. She had nothing but eighties hair band posters on her bedroom walls back at the barracks.

Anyway, she was trying to put her journalistic skills to good use by looking over what Clark had stored in his loft.

The first thing that had caught her eye even before she'd come all the way up the loft stairs was the telescope. It wasn't overly large, but it looked old. Upon closer inspection, Chloe could make out scratches in the metal and the beginning signs of rust on its stand. Leaning over, she looked into the eyepiece. She hadn't expected to see much, what with it being daylight and all, but the resulting view surprised her. Chloe stood back up and blinked, making sure she wasn't seeing things. When she looked back again, the sight was still the same.

She was looking right into a girl's bedroom.

Actually, from her vantage point she could make out a girl with long brown hair and the most garish green necklace she'd ever seen working at her desk. Chloe'd met her in passing in the hall and the other girl had introduced herself. What was her name again? Lara something or other? At any rate it certainly looked like Clark liked Lara Something-or-Other.

Chloe felt her stomach constrict just a little. She had a sinking feeling she and Lara weren't going to be very good friends.

Rolling her eyes with an adept skill that would have made her older cousin proud, Chloe moved away from the telescope and walked over to Clark's bookshelf. The contents at first weren't that surprising: the first few books of the Harry Potter series, some astronomy magazines and books, a couple of biographies of sports heroes. There were, however, a few books that Chloe had not been expecting. On the bottom shelf, there was a collection of three or four math textbooks. When Chloe opened the first one, the collection of random X's, Y's that almost made her dizzy. Rifling through a few of the others, she found that the math just got harder. Some of the problems included terms she sure as Hell hadn't seen in her advanced algebra class.

Weird.

If she didn't know better, she'd say some of it was pre-Calculus and judging by the chicken scratch in the margins, most of the problems had been answered. Chloe frowned and turned to the copyright information page. There was a chance that Mr. or Mrs. Kent had saved their textbooks over the years and they were here just waiting to be used. It was a lot cheaper than buying new, and, even after a few hours on the farm, Chloe could tell the Kents were budget-conscious. Chloe's frown deepened when she read the date on the front page: 1999. The book wasn't even a year old.

Oh it was definitely Clark's and it definitely wasn't anything they'd be covering this year. Double weird.

Chloe shrugged and put the books back, looking over the rest of the bottom shelf. It mostly contained more astronomy and math books---which unfortunately seemed to confirm that Clark Kent might be a bit boring. The she stumbled upon a thin paperback in the far right corner. Judging by the dust covering the spine, it had been there for a while. Curious, Chloe picked it up and read the title out loud to herself:

"_Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew_."

"I never did read past number ten." Clark said.

Chloe yelped and dropped the book, caught off guard by Clark's return. He could be quiet when he wanted to. She turned around and watched as he placed a tray of cookies and lemonade on the steamer trunk in front of his sofa. The lemonade was brimming with ice cubes and it looked really good. Too bad this wasn't quite the time for refreshments. "Um, I'm sorry about that. You were gone for a while and I just wanted to see what kind of books you had. Harry Potter, heh. Good choice."

Sighing, he sat down on the sofa and patted the cushion to his left. "Yeah, I'm sure it's my taste in literary wizards that's really getting your attention. Sit down, Chloe. I'm not mad."

She arched an eyebrow at him and slowly made her way over to her side of the couch. It seemed to take forever to get over there. Honestly she was surprised. Usually when people caught her snooping they were less than thrilled. "You're not?"

He shrugged and reached for the glass of lemonade. "I'm the one who left you up here for twenty minutes while mom finished baking the cookies. It's sort of natural that you'd start looking through some of my books. If you wanna know the truth, I'd forgotten it was even there."

Chloe sat down next to him, placing her backpack on the floor in an effort to ensure that she had extra room on the cramped couch. "I can tell, what with the army of dust bunnies camping out on it."

He laughed softly and took a swig of his lemonade. "Well, I never liked the book very much."

"I'm sorry…I didn't know you were adopted."

"I did sort of forget to mention it."

"Yeah, I feel really bad about that 'cause the quasi-hidden paperback is sort of an awkward way to let someone know."

"No, really," He said, taking another swig. "It's not a big deal. I honestly forgot because in a town as small as this one, everyone knows your story. So even before I started elementary school everyone knew and was cool with it. And, as far as mom and dad are concerned, they've always felt like my real parents, so I figure I'm pretty well-adjusted with the whole thing."

There was a slight tightness in his posture and a strain in his voice that he wasn't hiding as well as he'd probably have liked to. If she were anyone else, she'd probably have bought his line without pause, but she was Chloe Sullivan, investigative journalist, and she'd spent hours playing "interview" with her father. A game in which, she basically interrogated her poor yet patient father.

But, considering she'd just been the one to broach the beyond awkward subject, she let it slide. "That's good." She bit her lower lip.

"You wanna ask me a question don't you?"

"Am I that easy to read?"

"The first thing you did when you got here was ask for a copy of the Planet and then you asked the homeroom teacher if middle school kids could work on The Torch. I'm thinking you might want to be a reporter when you grow up."

"I want to be _the_ reporter when I grow up."

"Like Barbara Walters?"

"Please, television journalism is so not journalism. I'm talking like Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward."

"Who?"

The blasphemy. That was it. Clearly elementary education was sorely lacking here in the sticks. "They exposed one of the most corrupt presidents ever and got him impeached. They changed the world."

"Oh, well I'm not really that interested in the news."

"You will be."

He arched his eyebrow at her. "I will, will I?"

She nodded. "Yup. I talked to Mr. Brodmann and he said that The Torch was sort of having a rebuilding year and was desperate enough to be taking on middle schoolers. You and Pete are going to love helping me out."

"We are?"

"Do you have something better to do in the afternoons? You don't have like football or anything, do you?"

Clark frowned a little and looked down at the trunk. "Why do you ask?"

"Besides the fact that I'm going to need body servants to pull off my coup d'etat at the paper? I just figured that every boy out here was born knowing how to milk a cow and throw a pigskin, which makes you all very animal-minded if you ask me."

His frown deepened and his voice was soft when he spoke. "I don't play, actually."

Well, jeez, now he looked like she'd just kicked his pet cow. Hanging out with Clark Kent came with a severe learning curve. There were a lot of subjects that were taboo with him, a lot more than with your average guy. He was so sensitive.

It was very cute.

"Well, I don't play either. Sports are so not my thing besides maybe jogging with my cousin. Journalism is so much better, I swear you're going to love it." She paused, biting her lip. "So how were you spared the meathead mentality that causes the boys of this town to engage in blatantly homoerotic behaviors while dressed in helmets and pads?"

He sputtered, spitting out half of his lemonade into the air, when she'd said "homoerotic," and his ears started glowing a bright pink.

It was light years beyond cute.

"Oh, Chlo, you did not just say that."

"Oh please, at least I've found one enlightened male in the town the AP newswire forgot. So, why don't you play anyway?"

"My parents don't want me to. They actually don't want me playing any sports, except the non-contact kind. You know, like running or swimming are okay. Everything else is off-limits."

"See," Chloe said nodding. "It'll be perfect. We'll write and like go jogging or something, although with the length of your legs, I'm going to have to full out sprint to keep up with you." She reached out for her own glass of lemonade and took a long sip, enjoying the coolness of the refreshment. Finally it didn't feel like a million degrees in the barn. "So," she asked, perking up a little, "You said I got to practice my interview skills with you."

"It depends. Are we doing a friendly get-to-know you thing or a sworn onto the stand kind of thing?"

She took another swig of her lemonade and smirked at him. "I'll go easy on you the first time around. Sure you're okay with this?"

"Yeah." He said shrugging his shoulders. "I know you probably won't let it go and people tend to be pretty curious about it. I mean I was young and everything, but when I started third grade, every kid in class wanted to ask about it. I'm one of two adopted kids in town."

Wait. Third grade? One of two? Chloe had a sinking suspicion that the more she learned about Clark, the more questions she was going to run into as well. "Okay, one thing at a time. Third grade?"

He nodded and his voice was subdued when he spoke. "My parents had me home-schooled until I was eight."

Huh-uh. Maybe Buffy was right and homeschool really was for crazy religious people. Not that Clark's family was all about the hanging crucifixes and the praying but they did seem pretty anal. She'd never seen a family that didn't want their son to do so many things. The closest she'd ever come was to this kid in fourth grade who was on some special diet and had to have every lunch a snack specially prepared for him to fit his mom's list of requirements.

"Alright then. That answers that question. What about the one of two thing?"

"Oh, Lana's adopted too. Well sort of." He furrowed his brow. "You've heard about the meteor shower we had back in 1989?"

Heard about it? Well, granted she really hadn't until her dad had announced they were moving to Smallville, and she decided that she needed to know everything about her new little hamlet. The meteor shower had been the biggest thing to ever hit the town, literally. Plus in her last few months collecting the articles of the strange and bizarre in Smallville, she was beginning to believe that the meteor shower was the cause of all the weirdness. Of course, she really couldn't say all that. It was good not to look Fox Mulder paranoid in front of the boy she had a crush on.

So, putting aside her instinct to rant and enlighten Clark about his quirky little town, Chloe just nodded. "I have."

"Well Lana's parents were killed and her aunt who was also living in town took her in."

"So that's her name!"

Clark blinked. "What?"

"Oh, I sort of looked through your telescope while I was bored and I spotted Lana across the way…in her bedroom." She quirked her head at him and smirked.

"Um, yeah, about that…" His ears grew redder than Mrs. Kent's prized tomatoes. "Sometimes that telescope just swings out on its own."

"I'll bet." She punched him lightly on his arm and pulled back a little when she felt her knuckles hurt. Huh. He was harder than he looked. Maybe she shouldn't adopt all of Lois's mannerisms. "Ouch."

His eyes widened. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said, rubbing her right hand. "That's the last time I copy off of my cousin. Who knew farmboys were solid through?"

"Heh." He laughed weakly.

"I'm not going to rat you out but just don't let Lana catch you at it. I gotta tell you, having a stalker is so not endearing to a girl." Of course, if her stalker was Clark she'd never file a restraining order so what did she know?

"Thanks, I think."

"No problem. So," she said rubbing her hands together. "We're off to quite the start playing twenty questions."

"Oh god, what have I agreed to?"

"Don't worry. Yeesh, it's not like I'm a real reporter yet. Besides, I really need to get heading back home in a few minutes."

"Alright."

"So, are you like Lana?"

"Just because I have a telescope that sometimes…erm…slips, it doesn't mean I have a crush on Lana or anything."

"Freudian slip much? I asked if you were like her. If your parents were hurt in the shower too."

"I don't really know, actually."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I mean my parents found me in one of the fields when their truck rolled over, and they always assumed that my birth parents had been caught in the shower or something. If they were just hurt, they never came back to claim me, you know?"

"I do actually."

He blinked at her and tilted his head, his expression confused. "Huh?"

The things that came out your first time in a loft. Maybe it was that same spell people fell under when they were on an airplane or a long train ride, except, of course, she'd be seeing him first thing at school tomorrow so it wasn't like it was a complete stranger she was disclosing her deepest and darkest to.

Maybe, though, it was his eyes. They were so sincere and sweet. He made you want to tell him everything, as if in some weird way he could make it all better.

She felt safe with him.

She took another swig of her lemonade. "If we're riding the uncomfortable disclosure train, I might as well add in that my mom left when I was five. So it's just me and my dad."

"Oh, that must be hard."

She shrugged. "I love my dad tons. He's the best, so it's really not so bad."

He smiled a little. "That's how I feel about my mom and dad. Still, if your dad works a lot, he must not be home when you get there after school."

"Not all the time."

"So you really invited yourself over here for my company and not the cows." He said, his grin widening.

"Please farmboy, you shouldn't underestimate the allure of cute ponies and my first time ever in Amish country." Hey, she might have invited herself over for the joys of further ogling Clark, but he didn't have to know that.

"Isn't that really in Pennsylvania?"

"Amish country, the middle of Smallville. It's all the same." She said waving her hand and cursing when the glass slipped from her grasp. Just great, it was going to spill all over her backpack and all her books would probably get moldy or something. Chloe was about to let out a groan when Clark moved quicker than she thought humanly possible and caught the glass.

"Holy crap! That was fast and I thought that whole 'I don't do sports thing' was because you sucked. Those are some reflexes."

"Uh, yeah," he said, clearly uncomfortable with the compliment. Reaching down for her backpack, he pulled it up and started unzipping it. "Let's see what I just saved from a lemonadey doom."

"Hey give it back!" Chloe yelled reaching for her bag. Her attempts were in vain since Clark held the backpack high above her head as he unzipped it.

"There's no contraband in there, is there?" He asked as he pulled out a familiar gray and black bundle. "What's this?" He asked, lowering his arms.

Chloe yanked her bear back from him. "It's Walter Cronkite, my bear."

"That's a bear?"

Chloe frowned and patted the bear's tummy, trying to puff up its stuffing a little. All its eight years of wear really showed on her poor Cronky. "Granted, he's seen better days, but he's definitely a bear."

"So why'd he come with you to school?"

"He's kind of like my good luck charm. I'm not going to bring a teddy bear to school every day because that just screams maladjusted loser, you know? But he makes me feel secure and since it's the first time in a new school and I wasn't sure if I'd make any friends…"

"No that's kind of sweet. It's like Lana's necklace." And they were back to her again. Chloe was certain that she was going to get very tired of the proverbial girl next door very quickly, but she'd humor Clark. Anything to get to hang out with him.

"Okay, I'll bite. How is Cronky like Lana's necklace?"

"It's sort of her security blanket. It's special, made out of the meteor rock that hit her parents."

Shades of Flannery O'Connor. Now that certainly was twisted. Scratch all her earlier assumptions, Smallville might be more warped than even Suicide Slums. "Well that's certainly morbid."

He shrugged, "It makes her feel better."

"It'd make me feel worse."

"Yeah me too." He held out his hand. "Hey, can I have another look at, um, Cronky. I promise to be gentle with him."

Chloe arched an eyebrow at him. "Why?"

"I want to make a good impression on someone so important in your life." He said, his eyes twinkling.

The way he looked at her made her flush and made her stomach feel warm and tingly.

"Alright, but I should warn you, it's very hard to make a good impression on him. He's a flawless judge of character." She said, handing over her prized possession.

Clark took their bear and patted his stomach a little, trying to fluff up the fur in much the same manner he'd seen her do. He looked down into the button eyes and addressed the stuffed animal. "Hello Mr. Cronkite, how are you doing today?"

Chloe giggled. Apparently besides being a big dork, Clark was also a little nuts. They were definitely going to get along fine.

Clark frowned when Cronky remained silent. He turned back to her. "He's not really very chatty, is he?"

"Well, he doesn't do formalities. Call him Cronky."

"Cronky, huh?" He turned back to the bear. "Well Cronky it's a pleasure to meet both you and Chloe. Yeah, she does talk a lot, doesn't she?"

Chloe started to punch him again in the shoulder but, feeling the soreness in her knuckles, she thought better of it and threw a couch cushion at Clark's head. She grinned when her projectile hit its mark.

"Hey! Do you mind? I'm trying to carry on a conversation here." Clark said, looking at her and then back to Cronky. "I know she's pretty bossy too. Yeah, you're right, she's very nice and funny and maybe just a little too nosy for her own good. I think Pete likes her a lot. What's that? Well of course I like her." Clark paused and nodded his head, "listening" to Cronky. "Huh, that's very good suggestion. I can see why she keeps you around."

Clark placed Cronky in his lap and looked back to Chloe. "You're bear's a pretty smart guy."

"Oh is he?"

"Yup. He told me that the paper would be a perfect after school activity. He also mentioned something about Neanderthals and barbaric and antiquated pastimes but I kind of blocked the rant-y part out."

She chuckled. "You did now, did you?"

He nodded. "Cronky here also suggested that I give you a standing invitation to the farm. Not that we're all that fancy and that you need an invitation to commune with cows, but he thought you'd like to know that you're welcome here any time."

"Really?" Chloe's heart fluttered. Cronky was a freaking genius…oh wait, now Clark had her doing it.

"Seriously, Chlo, any time it gets lonely down at your house, you can come over. I mean, not at midnight because my mom would kill me, but you don't have to be all alone in a new town. I'd love to have you." That was it. She had died somehow on the way to school today and had managed to bribe her way into heaven where the angels were strapping farmboys who brought her fresh cookies and lemonade any time she asked. Beautiful, golden farmboys that loved having her around.

Of course, then he had to go and ruin that fantasy by talking some more. "We'll talk to Pete tomorrow. I'm sure the Ross house will have the same open door policy for you that it does for me. Pete's family is going to love having you around too, especially Judge Ross since Pete doesn't have any sisters. I can totally see us as the three mouseketeers."

Chloe sighed, still trying to keep her smile in place. "Musketeers."

"Huh?"

"It's actually Musketeer."

"Like the candy bar?"

"Like the Dumas novel but close. Anyway," she added. "I think I'll be taking you up on your offer, minion."

Affronted, Clark brought a hand up to his chest. "I am no one's minion."

"Oh you will be when I'm your managing editor at The Torch next year."

"Dream on, Chlo."

Chloe laughed, the slight funk forgotten, and then she paused. She hadn't realized that he'd fallen into using Lois's nickname for her already. It had just seemed so natural, so nice, that she barely noticed the change in appellation. Reaching across his lap she made a grab for Cronky. Clark, apparently having grown attached to his furry companion, snatched her wrist out of the air so fast, she'd barely caught the movement.

Barbaric and idiotic pastime aside, Smallville Junior High was really going to suffer by not having Clark out on that field.

At first she thought he'd drop her wrist equally as fast and let her rescue poor Cronky, but he didn't move, he just stayed there, stone still. Looking up, Chloe could see how wide and earnest his eyes were as he stared at her. Just as soon as the trance had come over him, it stopped and Clark dropped her hand. And stood up, almost kicking the trunk when he did it.

"Sorry. I'm sorry I shouldn't have grabbed you like that."

She stood up to and scooted closer to him, close enough that she could feel his breath. "Why?"

"Because…I…it was kind of forward."

"Trying to block access to my teddy bear wasn't exactly putting the moves on me."

"Yeah, I know…it's just, you've just moved here and the last thing you need is some guy…" Uncomfortable, Clark trailed off.

Chloe shook her head. She very much disagreed with him. The best thing that could happen would be if Clark were forward with her. She smirked to herself. Well, maybe the shy farmboy just needed someone to be direct with him. Metropolitan women were good at that in general, and it was an O'Hara woman specialty.

Standing up on her tip toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, putting into practice everything that Lois had taught her and everything she'd practiced on her own in the subsequent year.

Kissing Clark was different from anything she'd ever done, which made sense, since she'd only practiced on her hand and the bathroom mirror. His lips were surprisingly soft and they gave into hers so much easier than even the supple skin of her own hand. At first, he was so shocked that his lips were clenched tightly shut, but she snuck her tongue out, prodding gently at the point where his lower and upper lip met. He yielded to that and she found herself giving her first French kiss to a boy and loving every minute of it---the way his stubble scratched the bottom of her chin, the way his hands threaded gently through her hair, the way she could feel both their hearts speeding up. It was perfect.

Well almost perfect.

Clark apparently came from the same misleading Hollywood school of over excited slobbering. Chloe broke the kiss for a second and shook her head when he tried to speak. "Wait a second. You're a little over anxious there, buddy. Just relax and try it with a little less tongue, okay?"

He frowned a little and she definitely felt like she'd killed his favorite cow.

Gently, she rubbed the side of his face. "It's not bad, really. Almost perfect. It's just that there's such a thing as overkill."

"I'm sorry?" He said, his voice rising at the end like a question. She thought she even heard it break. He really was adorable.

"Don't be. I wasn't as good at it as I am now until my cousin helped me out."

"Cousin, huh?"

"No _Deliverance_ jokes please." She said, straining on her tiptoes. "Just let's give this a take two and follow my lead."

He nodded, bent down so she could reach him, and kissed her.

It was so worth waiting for this and Chloe was willing to be her brand new lab top that this kiss was a hundred times better than Lois's kiss with Scott.

Finally succumbing to her brain's stupid need for air, Chloe broke off the kiss and stood flat on the ground, smiling up at him. She was sure she looked like a sap, but she didn't care. Clark was grinning back at her, his expression equally goofy, and she was convinced that she should never even leave the loft again. Was convinced, that is, until Clark glanced around the loft and spied the telescope.

He frowned then took a few steps back from her without even realizing it.

And that was when Chloe realized her fairy tale was going to be a lot more complicated than she'd planned on. It figured. Competition sucked. She definitely wasn't going to like Lana Lang at all.

Chloe took a deep breath and let her grin slide into a cheeky smirk. It felt more natural on her face anyway. She'd lied to Lois on her twelfth birthday. Oh, she'd do almost anything Lois dared her to do (shy of eating the other girl's concoctions, she did not need her stomach pumped, thank you very much). Plus, she'd snuck into her old school's files so much that she knew more about them than the office staff did, but emotional risks scared her. She wanted Clark, but she wasn't going to declare all out war on Lana Lang yet. Chloe was going to be more subtle than that. It wouldn't do to scare him off.

"There. I could tell you've been wanting to do that all day and I thought we'd get it out of the way, so we could be friends." She stuck her hand out like the world's biggest tool and waited for him to shake it.

Confused, Clark took her hand and gave it a hearty shake. "Um, yeah friends. Exactly what I was trying to explain to Cronky over there."

Chloe, through sheer force of will, managed to keep smiling as she made her way over to the couch and stuffed all her books and Cronky back into her bag. "Well I better go. Someone needs to start dinner back home and my dad's working on enforcing this whole curfew thing. Comparisons to Alcatraz spring to mind."

He gave a forced laugh. "Heh. Nothing like parental prisons." She started clomping down the stairs, her Docs making an echoing thud on the steps. "Hey, Chlo."

And there was that blessed endearment again. Oh yeah, she had it bad.

"Yeah, Clark?"

"You'll still come over tomorrow. I think my mom's making apple pie."

She nodded. "I wouldn't miss it even for a Pulitzer nomination."

"Huh?"

She rolled her eyes in the traditional O'Hara manner. "I have so much to teach you, farmboy."

He gave her a smirk and that surprised her. She'd only met him a few hours ago, but he seemed like a wide-open smiles kind of guy. Of course, one's first kiss could throw someone off their game. Love, after all, makes you do the wacky, or at least lust could make you do the wacky.

Still smirking in that irresistible way----and she thought he'd been cute before---Clark replied, "I think you just did."

Metropolis, Kansas ------- July 22, 2002


End file.
